"Prolix" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... simple outline, which presents in a book of about 300 pages the main facts of our national history, and a very fair and judicial presentment it is, too. While the general reader will find it of interest, it has been prepared more particularly for the young, who are easily wearied by the prolix details which encumber so many of the histories prepared for them. Mrs. Parmele very truly remarks that the child, bewildered in a labyrinth of unfamiliar names and events, fails to grasp the main lines ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... whiskey only, of filling and measuring it out, loading, &c. will leave an advantage of I presume, three dollars in each load. Or to verify more satisfactorily, and I hope my readers will not think me too prolix, as economy cannot be too much attended to in this business, I add a statement predicated on a year's work, ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... works. Far be it from me to derogate from the real and great merit of so useful a writer as Puffendorff. His treatise is a mine in which all his successors must dig. I only presume to suggest, that a book so prolix, and so utterly void of all the attractions of composition, is likely to repel many readers who are interested, and who might perhaps be disposed to acquire some knowledge of the principles of ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... wanting in inventive power, in occasional situations that are intensely thrilling, and in subtle analysis of character; but they are fatally defective in art. The narrative is by turns abrupt and tiresomely prolix, proceeding not so much by dialogue as by elaborate dissection and discussion of motives and states of mind, interspersed with the author's reflections. The wild improbabilities of plot and the unnatural and even monstrous developments of character ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... reason"—replied the Vicar General—"had the wise man in the Old Testament, when he said: 'The fool is easily taken in his speech.' I had firmly declared I would not dispute." This beginning, certainly unexpected by the majority of the audience, was followed by a prolix homily on the origin of heresies; the battles of the Pope and Christendom against them; words of Roman historians on the value of unity; the rareness of the gift of interpreting languages, of which he himself could not boast; in short, every thing but that which was demanded. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... prolix, and have entered much more fully into detail than some may deem necessary in the account of this trip, for two important reasons. It is a trip that none should fail to take, and I have made it a sort of general account, giving in broad outline what the visitor may expect of any of the peak ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... through experience what was denied to his predecessors to hear even through report. Had I not already given your Majesty news of many other things which occur here, I would not dare to omit them now, even if I might be considered prolix. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... more methodical, though, under general circumstances, uselessly prolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch wide, in the sheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular holes in a slip of cardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over the square opening, and match each colour beside one of the circular openings. You will thus have no occasion to wash ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Sir Thopas," as it is generally called, is introduced by Chaucer as a satire on the dull, pompous, and prolix metrical romances then in vogue. It is full of phrases taken from the popular rhymesters in the vein which he holds up to ridicule; if, indeed — though of that there is no evidence — it be not actually part of an old romance which Chaucer selected and reproduced ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... which I will inform you presently; for it was by my curiosity to view this relic of their remotest times that the visit among the Indians, alluded to in the beginning of my letter, was prompted. It has been necessary for me to be thus prolix, to make you understand the nature of the society—and a sort of danger too—by which we were surrounded. On one side, white rogues—border cutthroats—contending, through corrupted red men, for the possessions of those among them, who, though honest, are unwary. On another side, the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... admit that cases have occurred within your knowledge of which the easiest apparent solution could be one which involved a belief in supernatural agencies?" persisted Latimer, who was rather prolix and pedantic ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... argument. This rhetorical device, so wearisome to modern readers, is used by Chretien preferably when some sentiment or deep emotion is to be portrayed. Ovid may well have suggested the device, but Ovid never abuses it as does the more prolix mediaeval poet. For the part playing by the eyes in mediaeval love sophistry, see J.F. Hanford, "The Debate of Heart and Eye" in "Modern Language Notes", xxvi. 161-165; and H.R. Lang, "The Eyes as Generators ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... Ranter began the game by asking him what was good for a hoarseness, lowness of spirits, and in digestion, for he was troubled with all these complaints to a very great degree. Wagtail immediately undertook to explain the nature of his case, and in a very prolix manner harangued upon prognostics, diagnostics, symptomatics, therapeutics, inanition, and repletion; then calculated the force of the stomach and lungs in their respective operations; ascribed the player's malady to a disorder in these organs, proceeding from hard drinkings and vociferations, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... amusement and delight. Abstracts from the most popular publications will be given, accompanied with short critical remarks upon them, and, whatever appears most interesting in the periodical productions of Great Britain will be transferred into this; pruned if they be prolix, and illustrated by explanatory notes, whenever they may be found obscured by ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... trust to his power, and the veneration that would be accorded to him, when he should re-emerge. In other words, they were to press on the Presbyterian theory in the Assembly, allowing "the Five Dissenting Brethren," as they were now called, the most prolix liberty of speech and reasoning, but always beating them in the final vote so as to secure a thoroughly Presbyterian report to Parliament at the last. But, in the second place, as the Independents had appealed to public opinion ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... in the night, I am not well satisfied of the exquisiteness of that sense in them. I believe their smelling or hearing does much contribute to their dexterity in catching mice, as to all those animals who are born with those prolix smelling hairs. Fish will gather themselves in shoals to any extraordinary light in the dark night, and many are best caught by that artifice. But whatever may be said of these, and other senses of fish, you know how much the sagacity of birds and beasts ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... metropolis. But the two townsmen don't seem to have seen much of each other in the big city. Their meetings were rare, and, so far as I can make out, for the most part accidental. But, as I said before, my oldest inhabitant is somewhat hazy, and excruciatingly prolix; his chaff is in the proportion of some fifty to one of his wheat. I've given a good deal of time to this case already, you see, Mr. Hawkehurst; and you'll find your work very smooth sailing compared to what ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... to the prolix story. He might have heard it before, he did not remember. There were several Indian ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... beyond the Third Beach, where the Norsemen were supposed to have landed during their apocryphal visit to this continent. It had been a hot drive, but when we stopped, a keen wind was blowing in from the sea. During a pause in the prolix address that followed, a coachman’s voice was heard to mutter, “If he jaws much longer all the horses will be foundered,” which brought the learned address to an ignominious and ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... it is that the religions of Chaldaea and Assyria are less well known to us than that of Egypt; the insufficiency of our knowledge of the political and social organization of the two kingdoms is to be explained by the same reasons. The inscriptions, prolix enough on some subjects, hardly touch on others that would be much more interesting, and, moreover, their interpretation is full of difficulty. The Greek travellers knew nothing of Nineveh, while their visits to Babylon were paid in its years of decadence. They seem to have been chiefly ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... make up their minds whether it be possible that the brute features of the monkey can be changed into the noble countenance of man: "Scinditur vulgus." One might argue at considerable length on this novel subject; and perhaps, after all, produce little more than prolix pedantry: "Vox et ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... read three or four of Scott's novels you are pretty apt to read more. It is an easy matter to skip the prolix passages and the unnecessary introductions. This done, you have a body of romance that is far richer than any present-day fiction. And their great merit is that, though written in a coarse age, the Waverley novels are sweet and wholesome. One misses a great source of enjoyment and ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... Portions of Thuanus his Historie, and the Letters of Theodore Bexa, concerning the French Reformed Church; oft prolix, yet interesting, especially with Mr. Agnew's Comments, and Allusions to our own Time. On the other Hand, Rose reads Davila, the sworne Apologiste of Catherine de' Medicis, whose charming Italian even ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... persons have united to find fault with certain elements of Cooper's art. Mark Twain, in one of his least inspired moments, selected Cooper's novels for attack. Every grammar school teacher is ready to point out that his style is often prolix and his sentences are sometimes ungrammatical. Amateurs even criticize Cooper's seamanship, although it seemed impeccable to Admiral Mahan. No doubt one must admit the "helplessness, propriety, and incapacity" of most of Cooper's women, and the dreadfulness of his bores, particularly the Scotchmen, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... into voluntary relations with "the Party" was when he took his pen in hand and manufactured for the Brull weekly a series of articles on "Law and Morality" and "Liberty and Faith,"—the rehashings of a faithful, industrious plodder at school, prolix commonplaces seasoned with what metaphysical terminology he remembered, and which, from the very reason that nobody understood them, excited the admiration of his fellow partisans. They would blink at the articles and ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 'methodical', 'function', 'numerous', 'penetrate', 'penetrable', 'indignity', 'savage', 'scientific', 'delineation', 'dimension'—all which he notes to have recently come up; so too 'idiom', 'significative', 'compendious', 'prolix', 'figurative', 'impression', 'inveigle', 'metrical'. All these he adduces with praise; others upon which he bestows equal commendation, have not held their ground, as 'placation', 'numerosity', 'harmonical'. Of those neologies which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... thought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the difficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For their books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars, sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with the calculations I had elsewhere read, the account ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... easily tired out that I am forced to read a great deal to recreate myself. That's why you see me reading so much." The book in which he was at the moment seeking recreation was a ponderous work on metaphysics by a prolix Scotchman, treating in many dreary chapters of such amusing topics as the unity of the act of perception with the object perceived! As may be supposed of such a man, whose illness forbade action and whose interior trials made contemplation an agony, he chafed sometimes at his enforced ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... king—Theodoric is his name. A man of blood he has been in his youth: but he has settled down, like his people; and here is a picture of him. A real photograph of a live old Goth, nearly 1400 years ago. Gibbon gives a good translation of it. I will give you one, but Sidonius is prolix and florid, and I have had ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... together of groups of ideas is concerned, this classifying quality is developed in some persons to a greater degree than in others. It finds its extreme exemplar in the type of man who can never relate an incident without reciting all the prolix and minute details and at the same time wandering far from the original subject in pursuit of ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton
... it necessary to read Archbishop Whately's Historic Doubts to perceive how readily Napoleon's real story lends itself to extravagant myth-making. At a later period he might have been the leading character in some prolix and pedantic romance, and still more recently his life and deeds would have been built up into the scaffolding within which the historic novelist used to construct his love idylls, his tragic situations, or even his illustrations of some social theory. All these methods and devices ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Marshal into the whole history of his early dislike to O'Neill, and his shrewd suspicions of him the first moment he saw him in Hereford: related in the most prolix manner all that the reader knows already, and concluded by saying that, as he was now certain of his facts, he was come to swear examinations against this villanous Irishman, who, he hoped, would be speedily brought to ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... so abroad again, and thus at their pleasure the whole day," p. 26. Thus have we pursued the History of the Education of Boys to a period quite modern enough for the most superficial antiquary to supply the connecting links down to the present times. Nor can we conclude this prolix note without observing upon two things which are remarkable enough: first, that in a country like our own—the distinguishing characteristics of whose inhabitants are gravity, reserve, and good sense—lads should conduct themselves with so much rudeness, flippancy, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the trouble of forwarding these to my publisher, who will give me notice of them, that I may endeavor to subjoin at the same time my reply; and in this way readers seeing both at once will more easily determine where the truth lies; for I do not engage in any case to make prolix replies, but only with perfect frankness to avow my errors if I am convinced of them, or if I cannot perceive them, simply to state what I think is required for defense of the matters I have written, adding thereto no explication of any new matte that it may not be necessary to pass ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... the one at Toledo, the other at Carrion de los Condes, a town in the Kingdom of Leon. Some of his companions had been admitted at Lerida, and at Balaguer, in Catalonia, under very extraordinary circumstances, which are omitted not to be too prolix. Zachary and Gautier, who had been sent into Portugal, had had much to suffer in the beginning; but Queen Urraqua, the wife of Alphonso II, who then reigned, was a most pious princess. She, having caused their Institute ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... 'think so brainsickly of things.' So in like manner will all the emphasis and elaboration in the literature of sensuality become a weariness without meaning, also. Congreve's caustic wit will turn to spasmodic truism; and Theophile Gautier's excess of erotic ardour, into prolix and fantastic affectation. All its sublimity, its brilliance, and a large part of its interest, depend in art on the existence of the moral sense, and would in its absence be absolutely unproducible. The reason of this ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... copious illustrations. If the following sample responses are carefully studied, a reasonable degree of expertness in scoring fables may be acquired with only a limited amount of actual practice. The sampling may appear to the reader needlessly prolix, but experience has taught us that in giving directions for the scoring of tests error always lies on the side of taking ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... with profound attention to a speech unusually prolix and descriptive for a Spartan; and he sighed deeply as it closed. For that young Athenian, destined to so renowned a place in the history of his country, was, despite his popular manners, no favourer of the popular passions. Lofty and calm, and essentially an aristocrat ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... will choose an indefinable subject, for he can then set down his theory of what it is; and next, at length, his conception of what it is not—and lo! his paper is covered. Therefore let us follow the prolix and unmapable trail into ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... might have said with the poet, "I avoid long-windedness, and I become obscure." Samuel ben Meir, on the other hand, grandson and pupil of Rashi, is, at least in his Talmudic commentaries, so long-winded and prolix that at first glance one can detect the additions made by him to the commentaries of his grandfather. It is related, that once, when Rashi was ill, Samuel finished the commentary Rashi had begun, and when Rashi got well he weighed the leaves on which his pupil had written and said: "If thou ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... spiritual counsels with regard to the religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form with the work which we have just examined. The tone of voice is so perfectly the same that one is tempted to see in it parts of the original draft of the Rule, separated from it as too prolix to find place ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... pasha shall be amused. Bismillah! he wills it so. If the story-teller becomes prolix and tedious—the bow-string and the sack, and two Nubians to drop him into the Piscataqua! But truly, Jack, I have a hard task. There is literally nothing here—except the little girl over the way. She is swinging in the hammock at this moment. It is to me compensation for ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... uncourtly biographer, "abounds to overflowing in what is called in England Parliamentary circumlocution, in which, instead of direct, simple expressions, bombastic paraphrases are always chosen, which become in the end intolerably prolix and dull, and are enough to drive a foreigner to despair." The style is indeed august; but the real penman is not the King, whose strong point was not grammatical composition, but some confidant, very likely Sir Herbert ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... perusal of the "Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amrique" with a feeling approaching regret; for although the six pursy little volumes composing it—full of quaint drawings, plans, and odd attempts at topographical maps—reveal a prolix writer, Pre Labat is always able to interest. He reminds you of one of those slow, precise, old-fashioned conversationalists who measure the weight of every word and never leave anything to the imagination of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... century (1644). Stephanius, the first commentator on Saxo, still remains the best upon his language. Immense knowledge of Latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors Saxo imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. His very bulkiness and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to write in, and who knew enough to fill ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... too prolix for insertion; it was a curious compound dissertation upon love and physic, united. There was devoted attention, extreme gentle treatment, study of pathology, advantage of medical attendance always at hand, careful nursing, extreme solicitude, fragility of ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... that I saw with these Eyes of mine the Spaniards for no other reason, but only to gratifie their bloody mindedness, cut off the Hands, Noses, and Ears, both of Indians and Indianesses, and that in so many places and parts, that it would be too prolix and tedious to relate them. Nay, I have seen the Spaniards let loose their Dogs upon the Indians to bait and tear them in pieces, and such a Number of Villages burnt by them as cannot well be discover'd: ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... in general are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds good in every other branch: "Verbositas praesentis saeculi, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... daily-increasing measure, the case with augural science and with the elections to the priestly colleges. The old and natural practice of dismissing the burgess-assembly, when a thunderstorm came on, had in the hands of the Roman augurs grown into a prolix system of various celestial omens and rules of conduct associated therewith; in the earlier portion of this period it was even directly enacted by the Aelian and Fufian law, that every popular assembly should be compelled to disperse if it should occur to any ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... no news to regale you with, for there is none abroad, but I live in the expectation of shortly hearing from you, and being informed of your plans and projects; fear not to be prolix, for the slightest particular cannot fail of being interesting to one who loves you far better than parent or relation, or even than the God whom bigots would teach him to adore, and ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... tradition was of no avail, and on which the customs of former centuries had had no opportunities to engraft themselves, had seen many things here which, in his eyes, could not justify themselves by reason. Lord Drummond was a little too prolix for a chairman, and at last concluded by expressing "his conviction that his countrymen would listen to the distinguished Senator with that courtesy which was due to a foreigner and due also to the great and brotherly nation ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... connexion in the policy and progress of the different nations of Europe; and its descriptions of what may be called external history—of battles, sieges and state pageants—are spirited and interesting. On the other hand the faults of the work are numerous and glaring. The general style is prolix, involved and vicious; mistakes of fact and false deductions are to be found in almost every page; and the constant repetition of trite moral reflections and egotistical references seriously detracts from its dignity. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... A more methodical, though under general circumstances uselessly prolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch wide, in the sheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular holes in a slip of cardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over the square opening, and match each color beside one of the circular openings. You will ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... somewhat prolix and tedious in my former purpose, it may be that it hath bred some offence, to such as dayly indeuour to occupie theyr sences in the pleasaunt discourses of loue. But it wyll also prooue no whit displeasant, if with a lyttle patience, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... be proper to weights, measures, and coins, it follows that a corresponding base of numeration and notation must be provided, as that best suited to commerce. For this purpose, the number two immediately presents itself; but binary numeration and notation being too prolix for arithmetical practice, it becomes necessary to select for a base a power of two that will afford a more comprehensive notation: a power of two, because no other number will agree with binary gradation. It is scarcely proper to say the third power has been selected, for there was no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... deemed prolix if I dwell with some particularity upon an occasion so historic. I had first encountered the newly elected President the afternoon of the day in the early morning of which he had arrived in Washington. It was a Saturday, I think. He came to the capitol under the escort of Mr. Seward, and ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... classes ... it is superior to anything written by Synge, Yeats, or Shaw.... The piece, in its realism, earnest purpose, and dramatic force, is worthy of John Galsworthy, and has the additional merit of being almost entirely free from anything like special pleading. Never prolix or oratorical, the compact and homely dialogue is full of shrewd observation and sage comments, pertinent to the contributory causes of a conel private and public tragedy.... The play is as able ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... prolix in our description of this extraordinary woman, but we shall be pardoned when we explain that we here give the portrait of Leonora Galigai, Marquise d'Ancre, the friend, confidante, and foster-sister ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... compelled to read it over again, I would write another of equal length; though I hasten to add that neither contingency is in the least probable. In very few men is found the power of sustained conception necessary to the successful composition of so prolix a tale; and certainly I have never betrayed the ownership of such a qualification. The tale, nevertheless, is an irrevocable fact; and my present business it ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was a religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the intellect. They agonized toward the truth, if not by intense thinking, yet by what many good people are apt to mistake for it,—immense endurance of the prolix ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... six Hells are personified as feminine; and (woman-like) they are somewhat addicted to prolix speechification. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... case, it was wholly within the cognizance of the royal Audiencia, and concerned laymen. For this reason, the usual royal decree was issued, in order that the notary should come to make report. This being made known to the archbishop, he made a very prolix reply, taking the ground, in very disrespectful language, that the appeal was not legitimate, and that he was not obliged to send the documents; but saying that, upon the necessary declarations, and with the stipulation that the acts should not pass into the possession of any official ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... to the "Negro Pew" was immediately laid hold of by the Abolitionists, and made to go the whole round of their papers as a "testimony against caste." This provoked into action the prolix pen of the celebrated Mr. Page, who wasted on the subject an immense quantity of ink and paper. "Page" after page did he pen; continued to do so, to my certain knowledge, for about three months after; and, for aught I know to the contrary, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... details in the action and unrolling endless descriptions of dresses, trappings, gardens, etc. He invented plots and situations full of fine possibilities by which later poets have profited, but his own handling of them was feeble and prolix. Yet there was a simplicity about the old French language and a certain elegance and delicacy in the diction of the trouveres which the rude, unformed ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... laying great stress on the degree and manner in which this element enters into the composition of the New Testament; that ethical truths are there expressed in every variety of form which can fix them upon the imagination and the heart, with an entire absence of those prolix discussions and metaphysical refinements which form so large a portion of Aristotle and Plato. If we find in these writers a moral truth expressed with something approaching the comprehensive beauty and simplicity ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... called) in America had been hitherto mere puffery—puffery for the most part of weak, prolix, commonplace scribblings of little would-be authors and poets. A reformation in criticism, therefore, Edgar Poe conceived to be the only remedy for the prevalent mediocrity in writing that was vitiating the taste of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... barons and others present kneel likewise, and all the musicians sound their instruments, till the khan has done drinking. If I were to describe all the pomp and magnificence of these festivals, and all die dainties and delicate dishes which are served up, I should become prolix and tiresome. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... poems, the poems of England and Germany give indication of a progress in style from a more archaic and repressed, to a more developed and more prolix kind of narrative. The difference is considerable between Hildebrand and Waldere, between ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... brown son of the sun," said Jack, with a sudden display of his old-time trail imagery, "you prolix, garrulous Firio, you knew! You had the great equine trio ready, and look at the miles they have done since sunset to prove it! You, P.D., favorite trooper of our household cavalry! You, Wrath of God, don't be afraid to make an inward smile, for your face will never ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... after roasting which we started for the interior of the island, and without meeting with anything beyond the ordinary routine of bad bush and mountain travelling; certainly encountering nothing that would justify me in inflicting a prolix description upon the reader—we arrived late on the following evening at the rendezvous, found the 'Daylight' safely at anchor, and thus completed one portion of our search, without having obtained the faintest clue to an elucidation of the mystery ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... burning; his first work, the 'Filocopo,' being written as an offering to her. It is a prose love story, mixed with mythological allusions,—after the fashion of the day, which thought more of the classics than of nature; and like all his earlier works, prolix ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Perrault had imitators, such as Madame d'Aulnoy, a wandering lady of more wit than reputation. To her we owe Beauty and the Beast and The Yellow Dwarf. Anthony Hamilton tried his hand with The Ram, a story too prolix and confused, best remembered for the remark, 'Ram, my friend, begin at the beginning!' Indeed, the narrative style of the Ram is lacking in lucidity! Then came The Arabian Nights, translated by Monsieur Galland. Nobody has translated The Arabian Nights so well as Galland. ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... to a single word upon kith, kin, and ally; I promise you I will not be prolix. But it is necessary to the authenticity of my legend, that you should know that Sir Philip Forester, with his handsome person, elegant accomplishments, and fashionable manners, married the younger Miss Falconer of King's Copland. The elder sister of this lady had ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... some things respecting this business that come within my knowledge; which are too prolix for a letter, but if the Court chuses to notice my petition, I shall be happy and ready to give ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... confirmed this view from their own experience. It was agreed further that small type—Parliamentary debates and the like—was more soporific than large, besides spinning out the length and deferring the relaxation of turning over, when in book-form. Short accidents, and not too prolix criminal proceedings were on the whole the most palatable forms of literature. It was not to be wondered at that old Mrs. Prichard should go to sleep over the newspaper at her age, seeing that none but the profoundest scholars could keep awake for five minutes while perusing it. The minute Dave ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... irascible contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix about the old general because you desired me in one of your letters to give you ample details whenever I happened to be in company with the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter is more deserving of the epithet than any of the personages I have ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... only alluding to it once in vague and general terms; he succeeded in getting the story, down to the burial of the Argive dead, within the compass of twelve books of not inordinate length. But it is possible to be prolix without being an Antimachus, and the prolixity of Statius is quite sufficient. The Argives do not reach Thebes till half-way through the seventh book,[550] the brothers do not meet till half-way through the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... robberies which they have perpetrated, they are held to be enemies of the country. In the islands of Japon they have another factory, from which they procure supplies and military stores, and which is of much importance to them. Of the other islands of this archipelago no mention is made, to avoid being prolix, although there are a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... narrated what had passed, and as she was very prolix, Mr Vanslyperken was a mass of snow on the windward side of him before she had finished, which she did, by pulling down her worsted stockings, and showing the wounds which she had received as her portion in the last night's affray. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his modesty—would seem, as far as I was able to judge by turning over the pages hastily, to be composed in a remarkably clear style, and to abound with naive phrases and genuine expressions of the king himself, wrought into the mass and substance of a prolix theological dissertation, that no doubt was prepared and digested for the purpose by the divines of the period. With regard to the correspondence with Anne Boleyn, which places the royal author altogether in a different point of view before the public, the latter consists of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... a vein of the extremest circumstantiality. With deliberate malice I loaded a prolix narrative with every triviality that a fairly retentive memory could rake out of the half-forgotten past. I cudgelled my brains for irrelevant incidents. I described with the minutest accuracy things that had not the faintest significance. I drew a vivid picture ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... character was a cool and determined courage, which gave an appearance of resolution and confidence to all his actions, and inspired his friends with admiration and excessive devotion to him, and caused him to be respected by his most violent opponents. As a speaker he was prolix, monotonous, and never eloquent, except, perhaps, for a few minutes when provoked into a passion by something which had fallen out in debate. But, notwithstanding these defects, and still more the ridicule which his extraordinary phraseology had drawn upon him, he was always heard with attention. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... had; for it was at a season when the church was in danger, and when all good men expected they knew not what would happen to us all. I then answered boldly, if he thought I had given my promise, he affronted me in proposing any breach of it. Not to be too prolix; I persevered, and so did my nephew, in the esquire's interest, who was chose chiefly through his means; and so I lost my curacy, Well, sir, but do you think the esquire ever mentioned a word of the church? Ne verbum quidem, ut ita dicam: within two years he got a place, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... sate beside my host. I saw Maud listening, with rapt interest, to the chronicles of all the village families, robustly and unimaginatively told by the parson's wife; meanwhile I, tortured by intolerable ennui, pumped up questions, tried a hundred subjects with my worthy host. He told me long and prolix stories, he discoursed on rural needs. At last I said that we must be going; he replied with genuine disappointment that the night was still young, and that it was a pity to break up our pleasant confabulation. I saw with a shock of wonder ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... be said that Lamarck's is the philosophic style; often animated, clear, and pure, it at times, however, becomes prolix and tedious, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... from the bar, harangues the bench, In English vile, and viler French, And Latin, vilest of the three; And all for poor ten moidores fee! Of paper how is he profuse, With periods long, in terms abstruse! What pains he takes to be prolix! A thousand lines to stand for six! Of common sense without a word in! And is not this a grievous burden? The lawyer is a common drudge, To fight our cause before the judge: And, what is yet a greater curse, Condemn'd to bear his client's purse: While he ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat numerous, and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to preserve his exact language—which is rather prolix—than to abridge too much, at the ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... "What is the gross sum that I owe thee?" he inquires. She might answer simply: "If thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst promise to marry me. Deny it if thou canst." Instead, she plunges into a prolix recital of the circumstances of the engagement, so that the all-important fact that the engagement exists has no special emphasis in her welter of words. "If thou wert an honest man," she cries, "thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... entanglements which were then held to be absolutely indispensable. "In the Sabine Mountains" (1871), the scene of which is laid in Genazzano during the struggle for Italian independence, is a trifle too prolix; and its effect is lessened by the old-fashioned epistolary form. Signor Carnevale, the revolutionary apothecary, is, however, a very amusing figure, and would be still better if he were not caricatured. The tendency to screw the characters up above ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... which were received with enthusiasm by all classes of society. He was an effective painter of customs, a learned, witty writer, and a master of the art of dialogue and description, but, unfortunately, often prolix. He used old artifices, adopted forced solutions, and often was not sufficiently reticent. In his last book, "The Adventures of Nicoletta Zevenster," while admirably describing Dutch society at the beginning of this century, he had the unheard-of audacity to describe an improper ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... is none the less unnatural. The characters are comparatively commonplace, the women especially being mere shadows; the motion is slow; and the inevitable passages of fine writing are, as the extolled soliloquy of Lioni, rather rhetorical than imaginative. The speeches of the Doge are solemn, but prolix, if not ostentatious, and—perhaps the vital defect—his cause fails to enlist our sympathies. Artistically, this play was Byron's most elaborate attempt to revive the unities and other restrictions of the severe ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... active one in all matters of intellectual interest, and in some of practical interest also, we cannot help thinking that his biography would have gained by greater exercise of self-denial on the part of his biographer. It is altogether too prolix, and the distinction is not sufficiently observed between what is interesting simply to the Bunsen family and their friends, and what is interesting to the public. One of the points in which biographers, and the present author ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... between the poetical writer and the poet. It is easier to give the instance than the reason, but I suppose the cause of the rhythmetical impotence must lie somewhere in the want of the power of concentration. For is it not true that the most prolix poet is capable of briefer expression than the least prolix prose ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Trendon. "One thing Billy said," he added, waxing unusually prolix for him, "was ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... revision. Burke had all his principal works printed two or three times at a private press before submitting them to his publisher. Akenside and Gray were indefatigable correctors, labouring every line; and so was our prolix and more imaginative poet, Thomson. On comparing the first and latest editions of the Seasons, there will be found scarcely a page which does not bear evidence of his taste and industry. Johnson thinks ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... for a moment deceive themselves on the confidence that this unbosoming deserved. They were long blase on oaths; they numbered among themselves veterans and virtuosi of perjury. The passage about the army did not, however, escape them. They observed with annoyance that the message, despite its prolix enumeration of the lately enacted laws, passed, with affected silence, over the most important of all, the election law, and, moreover, in case no revision of the Constitution was held, left the choice ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... great public cause, but a libel of the lowest class, both in sentiment and language. [361] It contained undoubtedly many just charges against the government. But these charges were set forth in the prolix and inflated style of a bad pamphlet; and the paper contained other charges of which the whole disgrace falls on those who made them. The Duke of York, it was positively affirmed, had burned down London, had strangled Godfrey, had cut the throat of Essex, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and—I beg your pardon, you must go? Of course. I am afraid I have been prolix; but my dear Morris, bear that in mind. A little discussion upon those inscriptions would be beneficial to the boy—I could tell him things he would be proud to know—and it would enable me to send a profitable description to the newspapers.—Yes, good-bye till ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... methodically and thoroughly to make her own forever what the world was only imparting to her in fragments and pieces, rather perplexing her than satisfying her, and often too late to be of service. He did not wish to be prolix about it. Ottilie herself knew best how much method and connection there was in the style of instruction out of which, in that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... by her recollections of English mountains and lakes. The attempt to blend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and a landscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for the lack of distinctness in her pictures. Her descriptions of scenery are elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult to form a clear image of the scene. In her novels she cares for landscape only as an effective background, and paints with the broad, careless sweep of the theatrical scene-painter. In the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... north of the Spanish possessions, and fell among a people who knew nothing of the white man. A native in a canoe speedily came out to the ship, as soon as she cast anchor; and, standing at a long distance, made delivery of a very prolix oration, with many gestures and signs, moving his hand, turning and twisting his head and body, and ending with a great show of reverence and submission. He returned to shore. Again, and for a third time, he came out and went through the same ceremony; ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... vice-president, rules, minutes, and committees. Not once, but twice a week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the conscious moon, gleaming in at the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... in freshness), too often wraps you in words, stupefies you with gorgeous repetition, goes about and about and about, trailing phrases after him, while the procession of narrative images halts. He can be as prolix in his brooding descriptions as Meredith with his intellectual vaudeville. Indeed, many give him lip service solely because they like to be intoxicated, to be carried away, by words. A slight change of taste, such as that which ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... you say is right—perfectly right. You speak as a Christian should, and I honour you for it; but go on," replied Captain Poynder, who was evidently anxious to arrive at the conclusion of the master's somewhat prolix narrative. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... discussion of graver matters—politics, law, and history—that arose in the smoking-room, he was not to be put down by more fluent tongues; demolished sophistry by solid reasoning, impregnable assertions, and an array of facts that might be prolix, but was always formidable—in short, sustained fully the character ascribed to him by his brother-in-law, of a "thoroughly ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Islande. Par Olafsen et Povelsen. Paris, 1801. 5 vols. 8vo.—This work, translated from the Danish, though tedious and prolix, supplies many curious particulars respecting the natural history of the country and the manners of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... being the oldest man present, was entitled to the position of spokesman; and he made a very prolix statement of all the events which had transpired since he first ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... egotistical, and to linger too long and too fondly over scenes and incidents of which one might say, in Virgilian phrase, quorum pars, si non magna, at parva fui. Should the reader deem any portions unduly prolix, he will, perhaps, kindly excuse it on this score. But I have known several instances, and especially of late two in this neighbourhood, when a person advanced in years and of wide experience, has passed away, and ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... the environing milieux. But it is not the same with animals, which are obliged to move about to procure their sustenance. Moreover, most of them have other wants to satisfy, which require other kinds of movements and acts." This matter is discussed in the author's often leisurely and prolix way, with more or less repetition, which we ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... was the first who dared to cross the threshold of the church, which he did, however, not for his own benefit, but to do honor to the memory of Leo I. The inscription in which he describes the event is too prolix to be given here. It tells us that the grave of Leo the Great was in the vestibule below the sacristy. There he lay "like the keeper of the temple, like a shepherd watching his flock." But other graves had crowded the place so that it was almost impossible to single ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... I am getting prolix, I shall hurry over the next few years I remained in Leeds. I became a partner of the house; our transactions were very extensive, more particularly in the United States of America, where we were deeply engaged in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... however, that the Cabinet was so constructed as to make it harmonize with the southern policy of the administration. It was not long before the announcement was officially made in prolix sentences, of which Secretary Evarts was no doubt the author, that the army could not and would not be used to uphold and sustain any State Government in an effort to maintain its supremacy and enforce ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... account (1829); the published account of July 1828, derived from 'the expressions of a half-dumb animal' (as Feuerbach puts it), is much more prolix and minute in detail. The animal said that he had sat on the ground, and never seen daylight, till he came to Nuremberg. He used to be hocussed with water of an evil taste, and wake in a clean shirt. 'The man' once hit him and hurt him, for making too ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... interest in this visit of the departed guid-man, and, having touched a chord which was extremely sensitive and not easily put to rest after having been made to vibrate, old Mrs Cameron entertained her with a sweet and prolix account of the last illness, death, and burial of the said guid-man, with the tears swelling up in her bright old eyes and hopping over her wrinkled cheeks, until Flora forbade her to say another word, reminding her of the doctor's orders ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... the concise elegance of Phaedrus, and the native graces of La Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated in a series of apologues: but the composition is intricate, the narrative prolix, and the precept obvious and barren. Yet the Brachman may assume the merit of inventing a pleasing fiction, which adorns the nakedness of truth, and alleviates, perhaps, to a royal ear, the harshness of instruction. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the literary quality of the Hindoo epic in comparison with Homer's work, we are at once impressed with the immense superiority of the Greek poem in artistic proportion, point, and precision. The Hindoo poet flounders along, amid a maze of prolix description and wearisome simile. Trifles are amplified and repeated, and the whole poem resembles a wild forest abounding in rich tropical vegetation, palms and flowers, but without paths, roads, or limits. Or rather, we are reminded of one of the highly painted and richly decorated idols ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... died young, and his character is unfavorably viewed by the historians. In the voluminous correspondence which I have examined, could we judge by state letters of the character of him who subscribes them, we must form a very different notion; they are so prolix and so earnest that one might conceive they were dictated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... write pertaining to government and military affairs, I touch on some points which also touch this matter of the revenue; and I do not repeat them, in order not to become prolix. I only go back in this to represent the difficulties occasioned here by its being known that the governors give account of everything—as I am giving it and shall continue to give it as my conscience dictates to me; for others will not neglect to advise you of many things pertaining ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... to dismal lodgings in town now; he only heard of the plan by letter, and the Captain's letters were very prolix, and not informing. Mr. Gillat's own letters were even worse, for if they lacked the prolixity, they lacked the little information also. On receipt of the Captain's information he merely wrote to ask when Julia was going, and what time she would be in London, as he ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... woman's equality, but in a work of thirty chapters devoted himself to proving "the superiority of woman." In less than fifty years (1552) Ruscelli brought out a similar work based on the Platonic Philosophy. In 1599, Anthony Gibson wrote a book which in the prolix phraseology of the times was called, "A Woman's Worth defended against all the Men in the World, proving to be more Perfect, Excellent, and Absolute, in all Virtuous Actions, than any man of What Quality Soever." While these sturdy male defenders of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... therefore, complacently enough to Bergenheim's prolix explanations, interested himself in the planting of trees, thought the fields very green, the forests admirable, the granite rocks more beautiful than those of the Alps, went into ecstasies over the smallest vista, advised the establishment of a new ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard |
